It’s official, and the countdown is over. Apple has announced that there have been 25 billion app downloads from the App Store. More than 315 million iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch devices have gotten in on the download action. According to Apple, the 25 billionth application was Where’s My Water, the free edition. Go figure. Chunli Fu of Qingdao, China, has won a $10,000 iTunes gift card for downloading an absolutely free application. Oh, how this story is bursting at the seams with irony.

From Apple’s Press Release:

[quote]We’d like to thank our customers and developers for helping us achieve this historic milestone of 25 billion apps downloaded,” said Eddy Cue, Apple’s senior vice president of Internet Software and Services. “When we launched the App Store less than four years ago, we never imagined that mobile apps would become the phenomenon they have, or that developers would create such an incredible selection of apps for iOS users.[/quote]

I’d be very interested to know the percentage of applications that were downloaded for free versus the number of applications that were paid for over the last couple of years. We’ll never get those numbers from Apple, but it would certainly make for an interesting story.